Trainspotting Quotes

[first lines]
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: [narrating] Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose

leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an

embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?

[last lines]
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Now I've justified this to myself in all sorts of ways. It wasn't a big deal, just a minor betrayal. Or we'd outgrown each other, you know, that sort of thing. But let's face it, I ripped them off - my so called mates. But Begbie, I couldn't give a shit about him. And Sick Boy, well he'd done the same to me, if he'd only thought of it

first. And Spud, well okay, I felt sorry for Spud - he never hurt anybody. So why did I do it? I could offer a million answers - all false. The truth is that I'm a bad person. But, that's gonna change - I'm going to change. This is the last of that sort of thing. Now I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm gonna be just like you.

The job, the family, the fucking big television. The washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electric tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax

exemption, clearing gutters, getting by, looking ahead, the day you die.

Tommy: Doesn't it make you proud to be Scottish?
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: It's SHITE being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the English. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are COLONIZED by wankers.

Can't even find a decent culture to be colonized BY. We're ruled by effete arseholes. It's a SHITE state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and ALL the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference!

Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: We took morphine, diamorphine, cyclizine, codeine, temazepam, nitrazepam, phenobarbitone, sodium amytal, dextropropoxyphene, methadone, nalbuphine, pethidine, pentazocine, buprenorphine, dextromoramide, chlormethiazole. The streets are awash with drugs you can have for unhappiness and pain, and we took them all. Fuck it, we would have injected vitamin C if

only they'd made it illegal.

Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Excuse me, excuse me. I don't mean to harass you, but I was very impressed with the capable and stylish manner in which you dealt with that situation. And I was thinking to myself, now this girl's special.
Diane: Thanks.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: What's your name?
Diane: Diane.

Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: And where are you going, Diane?
Diane: I'm going home.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Well, where's that?
Diane: It's where I live.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Great.
Diane: What?
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Well, I'll come back

with you if you like, but like, I'm not promising anything, you know.
Diane: Do you find that this approach usually works? Or let me guess, you've never tried it before. In fact, you don't normally approach girls - am I right? The truth is that you're a quiet sensitive type but, if I'm prepared to take a chance, I might just get to know the inner you: witty, adventurous,

passionate, loving, loyal. Taxi! A little bit crazy, a little bit bad. But hey - don't us girls just love that?
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Eh?
Diane: Well, what's wrong boy - cat got your tongue?

Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: It wasn't just the baby that died that day. Something inside Sick Boy was lost and never returned. It seemed that he had no theory with which to explain a moment like this... nor did I. Our only response was to keep on going and 'fuck everything'. pile misery upon misery, heap it up on a spoon and dissolve it with a drop of bile, then squirt it into a

stinking, puerile vein and do it all over again. Keep on going, getting up, going out, robbing, stealing, fucking people over. Propelling ourselves with longing towards the day that it would all go wrong, because no matter how much you stash, or how much you steal you never have enough. No matter how often you go out and rob and fuck people over, you always need to get up and do it all over again.

Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: [narrating] I wished that I'd gone down instead of Spud. Here I was surrounded by my family and my so-called mates and I've never felt so alone. Never in all my puff. Since I was on remand, they've had me on this program, this state sponsored addiction. Three sickly sweet doses of methadone a day instead of smack. But it's never enough. And at the moment

it's nowhere near enough. I took all three this morning and now I've got eighteen hours to go until my next shot. I've got sweat on my back like a layer of frost. I need to visit the Mother Superior for one hit. One final hit to get us over this long, hard day.
[to Swanney 'Mother Superior']
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: What's on the menu this evening, Sir?

Swanney: Your favorite dish.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Excellent.
Swanney: Your usual table, Sir.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Oh, why thank you.
Swanney: Would Sir care to pay for his bill in advance?
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: No. Stick it on my tab.

Swanney: Ah, regret to inform, sir, credit limit was reached and breached quite some time ago.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Oh, well in that case...
[hands him some cash]
Swanney: Ah, hard currency. Thank you, Sir. Can't be too careful these days. Would Sir care for a starter of some garlic bread perhaps?
Mark

"Rent-boy" Renton: No, thank you. I will proceed directly to the intravenous injection of hard drugs, please.

Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Never again, Swanney. I'm off the scag.
Swanney: Are you serious?
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Yeah, no more. I'm finished with that shite.
Swanney: Well, it's up to you, man.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Gonna get it right this time. Gonna get it sorted out. Gonna get off

it for good.
Swanney: I've heard that one before.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: The Sick Boy method?
Swanney: Well, it nearly worked for him, hey.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Well, he's always been lacking in moral fiber.
Swanney: He knows a lot about Sean Connery.
Mark

"Rent-boy" Renton: That's hardly a substitute.

Begbie: Did you bring the cards?
Sick Boy: What?
Begbie: The cards, the last thing I told you was to mind the cards!
Sick Boy: Well, I've not brought them.
Begbie: It's fucking boring after a while without the cards.
Sick Boy: I'm sorry.

Begbie: Bit fucking late, like.
Sick Boy: Why didn't *you* bring them?
Begbie: 'CAUSE I FUCKING TOLD YOU TO BRING THEM, YOU DOSS CUNT!
Sick Boy: ...Christ.

Sick Boy: [Sean Connery accent] Do you shee the beasht? Have you got it in your shights?
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: [aiming the pellet gun at a dog] Clear enough, Missh Moneypenny! This should preshent no shignificant problemsh!
[shoots the dog which starts attacking its owner]
Sick Boy: For a vegetarian, Rents, you're a fuckin'

EVIL shot!

Diane: You're not getting any younger, Mark. The world's changing. Music's changing. Even drugs are changing. You can't stay in here all day dreaming about heroin and Ziggy Pop.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: It's Iggy Pop.
Diane: Whatever. I mean, the guy's dead anyway.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Iggy Pop's not dead.

He toured last year! Tommy went to see him.
Diane: The point is, you've got to find something new.

Sick Boy: It's certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: What do you mean?
Sick Boy: Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone forever. All walks of life: George Best, for example. Had it, lost it. Or David Bowie, or Lou Reed...
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton:

Some of his solo stuff's not bad.
Sick Boy: No, it's not bad, but it's not great either. And in your heart you kind of know that although it sounds all right, it's actually just shite.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: So who else?
Sick Boy: Charlie Nicholas, David Niven, Malcolm McLaren, Elvis Presley...
Mark "Rent-boy"

Renton: OK, OK, so what's the point you're trying to make?
Sick Boy: All I'm trying to do is help you understand that The Name of The Rose is merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: What about The Untouchables?
Sick Boy: I don't rate that at all.
Mark

"Rent-boy" Renton: Despite the Academy Award?
Sick Boy: That means fuck all. Its a sympathy vote.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Right. So we all get old and then we can't hack it anymore. Is that it?
Sick Boy: Yeah.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: That's your theory?
Sick Boy: Yeah.

Beautifully fucking illustrated.

Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: ##The downside of coming off junk was I knew I would need to mix with my friends again in a state of full consciousness. It was awful. They reminded me so much of myself, I could hardly bear to look at them. Take Sick Boy, for instance. He came off junk at the same time as me - not because he wanted to, you understand, but just to annoy me. Just to show me

how easily he could do it, thereby downgrading my own struggle. Sneaky fucker, don't you think?